Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

by Hunter S. Thompson

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

One of the strangest journeys ever taken, and it’s all here on the page for you to enjoy. A bizarre and unique work of journalism, there is nothing else quite like Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. And there’s really no one like Hunter S. Thompson either.

50th Anniversary Edition • With an introduction by Caity Weaver, acclaimed New York Times journalist

This cult classic of gonzo journalism is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page.  It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken.

Also a major motion picture directed by Terry Gilliam, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679785897
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/12/1998
Edition description:	2nd Vintage Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	8.26(w) x 11.28(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Hunter S. Thompson (July 18, 1937 — February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author. He was known for his flamboyant writing style, most notably deployed in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which blurred the distinctions between writer and subject, fiction and nonfiction. 

The best source on Thompson's writing style and personality is Thompson himself. His books include Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (1966), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (1972), Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (1973); The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time (1979); The Curse of Lono(1983); Generation of Swine, Gonzo Papers Vol. 2: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the 80's (1988); and Songs of the Doomed (1990).

Date of Birth:

July 18, 1937

Date of Death:

February 20, 2005

Place of Birth:

Louisville, Kentucky

Place of Death:

Woody Creek, Colorado

Education:

U.S. Air Force, honorably discharged in 1957

Editorial Reviews

When Sports Illustrated commissioned Thompson to write a short article on the Mint 400 motorcycle race in Las Vegas, the editors had no idea what they were setting in motion. This book is the defining moment in Thompson's "gonzo journalism" style of writing. He took this style to the limit with this work, barely covering the race and instead writing a series of weird vignettes, paranoid frenzies, and brilliant political prose. If you lived through the turmoil of the Sixties or want to experience the "high and beautiful wave" and see where it broke and gave way to a generation of swine and the songs of the doomed, this is the place to start. Thompson was always a political barometer-he was the voice of truth shouting about the corrupt system. That voice, now stilled by death, is sorely missed. Ron McLarty, though not the frenzied, manic voice one would expect to hear, does an excellent job of navigating Las Vegas. Highly recommended for all libraries.-Theresa Connors, Arkansas Tech Univ., Russellville Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." The hold deepens for two days, and the language keeps pace for 200 pages, in what is by far the funniest book written on the decade of dope gone by. Books of the Century, The New York Times review July, 1972

Crawford Woods